


Anchor

by LogicalBookThief



Series: Postcards [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Amnesia Recovery, Because it's ME after all, Brotherly Love, Flashbacks, Fluff, Post-Episode: s02e20 Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls, Post-Finale, Post-Weirdmageddon, Sea Hobo Shenanigans, With a Smidge of Angst and Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 18:00:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6715459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicalBookThief/pseuds/LogicalBookThief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment on the Stan o’ War II, post-finale, where one of those better-left-buried memories of Stan's rears its ugly head. Luckily, Ford’s well-versed enough by now to handle it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchor

**Author's Note:**

> Another tumblr cross-post, which happens to be a favorite of mine. Have I mentioned Ford being an affectionate and supportive bro is my aesthetic? About 100 times already? Well, alright, if you're sure. 
> 
> Enjoy!

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Ford paused in sketching out the ship’s course for the following day’s journey, fingers curling around his feather pen. He had a knack for drowning out background noise whenever he became intent on his writing, a habit picked up from working in rowdy New Jersey classrooms and then even rowdier community colleges.

Certainly, if he could study for his doctorate during the week leading to spring break, he could ignore his brother’s attempts at breaking his admittedly impressive paddle ball record.

After another ten minutes of continuous tapping, however, Stanford began to suspect that he’d overestimated his abilities.

He groaned. “Stanley, would you please stop that incessant racket?”

“What?” said Stan innocently. “I’m _entertaining_ myself. No harm, no foul.”

Staking his head, Ford asked tartly, “Where did you even get that toy?”

“Found it,” Stan replied, shrugging.

Which basically translated to, “You stole it.”

His brother smirked, utterly unabashed. Ford snorted.

“Better not bring the Coast Guard down on our heads again, knucklehead.” Or as his brother so fondly called them, the _Ocean Police._

“For what, aggravated paddle ball theft?”

They burst into laugher at that, and it was so nice how easy it was nowadays, sharing and enjoying stupid jokes with each other. Once they got the laughter out of their system, Ford returned to his navigation and Stan, unfortunately, returned to his paddle-balling.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Ford huffed. “Really, Stanley, could you quit that for at least five sec– _Damn it!”_

His elbow had nudged the candle and knocked it onto the table. Perhaps keeping an open flame so close to the pile of flammable papers across his desk was not the safest or smartest idea, but in his defense, it had only created a minor hazard at best.

“It’s fine, I’ve got it,” sighed Stanford, rising to his feet. He quickly patted out the flames – _honestly,_ he’d dealt with worse while perfecting his improved shaving technique, which his brother could not yet be persuaded to try.

The only remnant that remained was the faint scent of smoke in the air and a  singed map.

“Great,” he muttered, inspecting the charred surface. “We’ll have to use the spare, which isn’t as updated, and doesn’t have my notes on the mermaid caravan roots, so we might run into that manatee civil war nonsense again.”

His brother made no reply. Belatedly, Ford noticed that the tapping sound had ceased.

“Did you hear me, Sta–” He glanced at his brother and the words died in his throat, unnerved by what he found.

Stan had retreated inwards, hunched over, posture wound tight. The distress rolled off him in palpable waves, and Ford had reached him in two long strides before his thoughts could even process where his feet were moving.

 _“Nonono,”_ whispered Stan, gripping his hair tight, knuckles whitening under the strain. “I-It’s happening – not again, no–”

“What is?” Ford asked with mounting concern, prying his twin’s arms away from his colorless face. “Stan, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

“The flames–” Stan gasped, the words wrenched from the gut of his subconscious, sucked out between gritted teeth. “–t-they’re taking – _everything_   – you, the kids, Soos, _me_ – _all_ of it–”

Ford blanched, realizing what had happened. The fire must have torn a forgotten truth from the cracks in his brother’s mind, triggering a terrible flicker from that moment of erasure.

Stan babbled on, shaking, trapped in that moment, “I-I don’t know– th-there’s nothing to hold on – s'like I’m – _disappearing,_ like _I’m_ _nothing–”_

Abruptly, the fear receded, and a strange blankness began creeping onto his face. The blankness that Ford had come to fear more than any amount of terror of tears.

 _“Hey,”_ he snapped, and if he sounded firmer than usual, it was to keep Stan from retreating back into his shell. “Look at me.”

With some coaxing, Stan’s eyes tentatively met his, and Ford felt a raw pang at how confused and wary his gaze was, similar to how he’d looked all those months ago. He swallowed those worries down fast. He had to be calm and certain whenever Stan had one of these episodes, when his brother desperately needed something steady to buoy him in a sea’s worth of doubt and dread.

“You are _Stanley Pines,_ my _brother_. And you are not going anywhere,” Ford told him squarely, and, as an act of solidarity to drive the point home, gently knocked his forehead against his twin’s.

“I won’t let you disappear, okay?” he promised, giving a crooked smile. “I’ve got you, brother.”

The contact did the trick; Stan blinked a few times before the cloudiness cleared, and the fog from his eyes drifted. His chin trembled in that way Ford knew heralded a burst of emotion. Sure enough, it was the only warning he got before Stan threw his arms around him like an overgrown child, leaving Ford to pat his back and murmur soothingly.

When his brother showed no inclination of letting go, he recounted the last couple of days aloud, allowing the information to wash over the quiet cabin and illuminate the room. Everything from the anomalies they had recorded to the creatures they had encountered to the rare antiquities they planned to mail the kids.

Then he switched to older memories,  anecdotes from their youth, snippets of treasure hunts on the beach and loathed trips to the dentist. Even stuff as mundane and trivial as that always seemed to reassure Stan of his place in the world, anchor him to reality.

After lingering in the embrace a few more minutes, his brother pulled away with a grateful nod, looking a bit red and embarrassed around the eyes but otherwise okay. To cheer him up, Ford handed him the discarded paddle ball, a reluctant gesture on his sanity’s part.

His brother stared at the toy like he had never seen it before, or _rather,_ was seeing it in a sudden new light. Stan narrowed his eyes like there was an itch he couldn’t quite scratch until the literal lightbulb flashed, as it often did when he gained clarity on matters previously obscured. Wordlessly, he plucked the paddle ball out of Stanford’s hand and chucked the toy across the room.

Stan offered no explanation for this erratic behavior change and Ford didn’t press for one.

All he said was, _“Good._ I hated that thing, anyway.”


End file.
